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http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/12/18/2014-has-seen-largest-coverage-gains-four-decades-putting-uninsured-rate-or-near-his
2014 Has Seen Largest Coverage Gains in Four Decades, Putting the Uninsured Rate at or Near Historic Lows
Posted by Jason Furman, Matt Fiedler on December 18, 2014
Earlier this week, the National Center for Health Statistics released new data on health insurance coverage during the second quarter of 2014, the first federal survey data that largely capture the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period. These new data confirm earlier findings that 2014 has seen dramatic reductions in the share of Americans without health insurance, reductions that correspond to an estimated 10 million people gaining coverage since before the start of open enrollment.
This progress is even more striking when viewed in historical context. Building on work by other researchers, the Council of Economic Advisers has constructed estimates of the share of Americans without health insurance extending back to 1963. These estimates show that the drop in the nation’s uninsured rate so far this year is the largest over any period since the early 1970s, years in which the Medicaid program was still ramping up and the Medicare and Medicaid programs were expanded to people with disabilities.
With this year’s decline, the nation’s uninsured rate is now at or near the lowest level recorded across five decades of data. Furthermore, new data out today on Medicaid enrollment and data on Marketplace plan selections from earlier this week show that progress in reducing the number of uninsured Americans is continuing.
This new evidence that the law is succeeding in expanding coverage joins evidence showing that the nation is making progress on the Affordable Care Act’s other core goals: making our health care system more efficient and improving the quality of care that patients receive. On costs, underlying growth in health care prices, premiums, and per-enrollee spending—the costs that matter to families—remains exceptionally slow, thanks in part to the law’s reforms. This is occurring even as the dramatic expansion in coverage puts temporary upward pressure on growth in aggregate health care spending. Meanwhile, the nation is making progress on quality as well. Preliminary data released earlier this month showed that the rate at which patients are harmed when receiving hospital care has fallen 17 percent from 2010 through 2013, corresponding to an estimated 50,000 avoided deaths and $12 billion in savings over that period.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/12/18/2014-has-seen-largest-coverage-gains-four-decades-putting-uninsured-rate-or-near-his
2014 Has Seen Largest Coverage Gains in Four Decades, Putting the Uninsured Rate at or Near Historic Lows
Posted by Jason Furman, Matt Fiedler on December 18, 2014
Earlier this week, the National Center for Health Statistics released new data on health insurance coverage during the second quarter of 2014, the first federal survey data that largely capture the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period. These new data confirm earlier findings that 2014 has seen dramatic reductions in the share of Americans without health insurance, reductions that correspond to an estimated 10 million people gaining coverage since before the start of open enrollment.
This progress is even more striking when viewed in historical context. Building on work by other researchers, the Council of Economic Advisers has constructed estimates of the share of Americans without health insurance extending back to 1963. These estimates show that the drop in the nation’s uninsured rate so far this year is the largest over any period since the early 1970s, years in which the Medicaid program was still ramping up and the Medicare and Medicaid programs were expanded to people with disabilities.
With this year’s decline, the nation’s uninsured rate is now at or near the lowest level recorded across five decades of data. Furthermore, new data out today on Medicaid enrollment and data on Marketplace plan selections from earlier this week show that progress in reducing the number of uninsured Americans is continuing.
This new evidence that the law is succeeding in expanding coverage joins evidence showing that the nation is making progress on the Affordable Care Act’s other core goals: making our health care system more efficient and improving the quality of care that patients receive. On costs, underlying growth in health care prices, premiums, and per-enrollee spending—the costs that matter to families—remains exceptionally slow, thanks in part to the law’s reforms. This is occurring even as the dramatic expansion in coverage puts temporary upward pressure on growth in aggregate health care spending. Meanwhile, the nation is making progress on quality as well. Preliminary data released earlier this month showed that the rate at which patients are harmed when receiving hospital care has fallen 17 percent from 2010 through 2013, corresponding to an estimated 50,000 avoided deaths and $12 billion in savings over that period.
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